The Breaking Point of Starting Over
by DoctoressOctopus
Summary: Spoilers for chapter 402. After learning the truth of his life, Sasuke faces his new grief and, for the first time in so long, allows himself to feel without shame.


It was like coming to the world's end. There was no stop to the horizon, stretching for miles over the sea until the curve of the earth finally gave some semblance of the light sky meeting the contrasting waters in an unstable line. It was vast, it was empty, and it was open, with everything behind it, history inside it, and mystery beyond it. There was a pleasure in everything the location had to offer, in the way it welcomed any story into it.

That was what Sasuke liked about it.

The sand was warm with the high-riding afternoon sun, occasionally cooler in the aftermath of a low tide, and each patient step reminded him with a touch of heat to his soles. The scents of sand and salt were outmatched only by the low rumble of water over the shore and the sharp calls of seagulls, sounds that died as soon as they were released. No echo; his light footprints trailing behind him were the only lasting evidence, and even those would disappear within the day. He left no permanent mark on the place, but while Sasuke had never been one to tan easily, he had noticed that the exposed skin of his arms and higher were a pigment darker than before. Hardly noticeable, but he had developed an even sharper eye for detail lately.

Slowing, Sasuke finally diverted from the straight-line path he'd been walking for the past hour to step purposefully onto the latest wave, the unconscious stream of chakra he had used to keep himself mostly above the sand now allowing him to climb over the water as it rolled and grew deeper away from the shore. A moment and several yards later, the same grip granted him a steady foothold along the slick, black surface of a stone that jutted out of the waters some twenty feet after the sandy bank ended. He kept on climbing, ignoring the cool ocean spray that clung to his skin and persuaded his shirt to his sides, up to the rock's very edge until he could see his churning reflection below. The sudden breeze pushed his hair back, thumped his zipper against his chest, before calming to a light brush. Gradually, he lifted his eyes again to stare towards the bright horizon, not really seeing.

He didn't care for the sight, the smell, or the sound of waves or seagulls' cries. He was attracted, perhaps addicted, to that vastness, the feeling of nothingness that lied along the coast and outward. It brought on something like a blank state of mind; it encouraged relaxing, put him at ease – or the closest thing to it. While the feeling didn't let him forget – nothing would ever let him forget – it made his burden lighter; or maybe heavier, allowing him to settle under the weight with a sense of finality and no what-ifs or could-have-beens. Either way, it was the most comfortable Sasuke had been in a long time.

Out here, he didn't have to think. Not unless he wanted to. Something about the sand and the sea extending out from all around him, limitless and empty, reduced everything to the basest of emotions. There was still a feeling of sadness, but that's all it was. A feeling. Not "regret." There were no names out here, no involuntary conscious thought. Just sensations. Neither were there names for his actions. He just felt, largely because that was _all_ he had done recently. In the week since his life changed, he had spoken only a handful of words. The rest of his sleepless hours were spent remembering and feeling. Thinking.

It was a dangerous thing for Sasuke to think, because that always meant commitment, and for him commitment meant dedication and obsession. It meant risk and a tolerance for self-sacrifice.

Below, the waves receded.

But unlike before, there was no simmering hate or anger in his chest, no eagerness or impatience. For the first time in so long, his temperament was mild, and that constant mental tension that he had grown so accustomed to had uncoiled. There was still that sadness, still that weight, but not that burning pain.

It was now a cold ache.

The cold ache of a loneliness deeper than he had ever known, that gripped and hurt him more than any hatred he had claimed in the past. It was no exaggeration to say that even breathing hurt more often than not, and when he managed, it was shaky, weak, and at its best shallow.

When his breath hitched or his jaw locked or his eyes stung, the ice grew without reprieve, brushing his heart and lungs with an unforgiving bite and making the remaining pieces of his poise all the harder to keep together.

Even now, here, under the touch of the sun that did him its courtesy, Sasuke was cold.

A glance down showed him the waves' return, crashing with more force than he had felt so far in a brief burst of foam that again lightly touched his skin. The water felt warm, comfortably so, and as the droplets merged and slid down to hang from his limp fingertips, so did his eyes focus to try and peer beneath the rolling surface. A futile attempt, it seemed, as he was looking down straight into the sea with no beach or slope of land to guide his gaze. It was only a constant, solid, blinding blue with no end.

In weaker moments, he was tempted to throw himself into it.

No, not even _throw._ Just fall. Just let go. Just _stop trying_, because trying never got him anywhere except in too deep. Effort only made him miserable, made him jealous, broke his heart, isolated him, and drove him crazy.

Effort had killed his brother. The brother he'd idolized and loved… had _still_ loved, even as he watched him die, because a deep part of him knew there was nothing Itachi could have ever done to erase the memories, to push Sasuke to the point of feeling absolutely nothing but pure, unadulterated hatred and not a single thing more.

His brother.

_Brother…_

Unchecked, the water slammed into the cliff face, louder, shaking the foundation with another low rumble – but Sasuke didn't hear it. He felt the land tremble and crack, and felt the warmth falling: sliding, racing, pouring down the smooth, cool face in streams. Pausing at the bottom – and then dropping off his chin, his jaw, or slipping under to his neck. Tears, warm tears that were as painful as they were relieving, embraced and stung his face. His shoulders shook once before he forced them still, an awkward but subtle twitch, and only by clenching his teeth until they hurt did he suppress an actual sob building in his throat. But he didn't bother with the tears. Even when they blurred his vision and coated his dry lips with their bitter, familiar taste, he didn't try to stop them. He just let them come, because this was the first and only sign of regret that he had granted himself in nearly eight years.

Sasuke hadn't cried in almost a decade, but he was finally letting go. A single weak moment between the stoic faces he put on. Or maybe it was a moment of strength, a sign of maturity as he continued to recognize that he wasn't – that he _couldn't be_ – the heartless killer with a castaway past that he had made his ideal, his mask, for all these years.

His eyes closed; not in resistance, but in pursuit of the shadows that fled to and fro before his vision and across his memory, of the sights and sounds and sensations known to him alone, which he could reach only by retreating into himself, into that dark, intimidating, and rarely-accessed corner. Those memories were all he had left, after all, along with a world of regret for each one. The tears didn't slow.

Sasuke could afford this moment – maybe even use it, because he was going to have to act again, now more than he ever had. Just one more time.


End file.
